The present invention pertains to a motor vehicle with a front-mounted transverse power unit which comprises a gearbox disposed near the engine, a differential housing driven by an output gear of the gearbox and, in a transfer case, a hollow shaft extending parallel to the engine and driven by the differential housing. Motor vehicles with such a power unit are commonly known and in use as motor vehicles equipped with four-wheel drive.
Front-wheel drive vehicles have a disadvantage in terms of traction compared to vehicles with rear drive if their rear axle is loaded more heavily than the front axle due to special bodies, heavy loads in the rear zone of the vehicle or due to a load exerted by a towbar on a trailer coupling of the motor vehicle. If one does not wish to accept this disadvantage, either a vehicle with rear-wheel drive or a vehicle with four-wheel drive must be selected for such purposes.
All the prior-art vehicles with rear-wheel drive have an engine mounted in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle. Both transverse-mounted power units and power units mounted in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle can be encountered in vehicles with four-wheel drive. The vehicle manufacturers normally use their standard vehicle design as the starting point and complement the front-wheel drive by an additional rear-wheel drive or the rear-wheel drive by an additional front-wheel drive. The drive is often designed so that two-wheel drive is achieved again by omitting the additional drive to make it possible to take over as many components of the four-wheel design as possible for the two-wheel drive.
German Pat. No. 31 16 411 issued to Nissan Motor Co. discloses, for example, a vehicle with transverse-mounted power unit and four-wheel drive. It is expressly stated in this document that certain transmission members may be omitted and be replaced by others to obtain a vehicle with front-wheel drive.